False Face Must Hide What False Heart Doth Know

"I don't know what to say to all this," Mireya sat slumped upon her throne drained completely at the overwhelming story she was just told. She brought a hand to her throat. It was an old habit since she was a child in training to be the next monarch of her people. The feeling of her pulse and the tender skin of her neck always reminded her to keep her composure, remain calm in adversity, and not lose her temper when she felt it rise. Right now, she was in danger of failing all three.

"Your Majesty," Jian said with a both confidence and contrition, "I am willing to accept all punishments you see fit when this is all sorted and over. However, it might be best to keep me in action until then. And whatever action you intend to take, I might suggest that we do so soon."

Jian had come before Mireya as instructed by Hemele. Jian remembered with perfect clarity the seriousness on Hemele's face when he had returned from the Madhouse visiting the man they had left there from the abandoned village. Hemele was like a man in great turmoil whose thoughts were far away and caught within a storm.

"Jian," Hemele finally said after thinking for what seemed like an eternity. Jian hadn't pressured him to talk the entire time. He just sat beside his Captain, his friend, the man he trusted most in life, and patiently waited for whatever it was that he would be called upon to do. "I have some questions that I am going to investigate."

"Figured you did, figured you would," Jian responded to Hemele as he downed the last of his warmed wine in preparation for whatever he would need to do.

Hemele went to a trunk in a supply room of the barracks with Jian following him and brought out a medium sized candle. Jian recognized it as a Three-Hour Candle. These candles were measured out and had two red lines within the white wax. If uninterrupted, the candle would burn down to the red marks to mark the passage of an hour. Three-Hour Candles would mark three hours passed once burned completely.

The candle was set upon a table of Hemele's private room. "Jian, if I'm not back by the time this has burned completely, I need you to go to the Queen."

"What are you talking about?" Jian had noticed clearly that Hemele was solemn the whole evening, but nothing like the tone change he was sensing now. Suddenly, Jian felt like this was no ordinary order, no ordinary investigation. "Is there going to be trouble?"

"I'm not sure. There's just a chance that there could be." He gave a mixture of a chuckle of obviousness and a sigh of desperation. "More than a chance, actually."

"If that's the case," Jian offered, "shouldn't I be going with you, sir?"

"No!" Hemele responded rather suddenly. Jian seemed to puff his chest out slightly in an almost subconscious attempt to appear braver. He never thought Hemele would take him for someone scared of danger or who would shirk away from a fight. And though Jian was older by at least five years, he always looked up to Hemele like a big brother. Hemele's tone wounded Jian's pride. Hemele decided to explain further, something he rarely did. "It's not that I wouldn't welcome some additional muscle, and it's not that I don't think you aren't brave enough. It's just…" and again his mind seemed so far away. He was being swept up like a leaf lost in the flow of the river with all of the possibilities of what the next hours could reveal and bring. "It's just, you're the only one I can trust. I mean truly trust. And if the absolute worst should happen, I need you to get word to the Queen."

At that moment, he began to take out a parchment and some ink. Jian watched on in silence as Hemele wrote out a hasty letter. "Jian, if I do not come back, then that means that certain things were both proven right and then went horribly wrong. If I am not back by three hours, I won't be coming back."

Jian's body went stiff at the thought that he might be watching as his Captain walked willingly into the pit of lions just then. He had to fight the urge to try and stop him. But just as Hemele trusted Jian, Jian trusted Hemele more than he had trusted his own father. If Hemele thought that something was worth risking everything for, he would stand by it.

"Jian, this letter will explain everything. It will tell the Queen that the Healer is alive, and that our Master Durai is dangerous."

Jian knew Hemele for many years, and never once had he seen his Captain go against orders, and certainly not with the implications this could mean. And to be speaking out against a trusted member of the court…

"What happened down there?" Jian asked referencing Hemele's visit to Galen.

Hemele sighed, handed the sealed letter to Jian, and said, "Please, just trust me on this one. And if I don't come back, remember what we talked about." Jian thought then about their talks at the fire lately. The more he thought about it, the more Jian realized that all of he and Hemele's suspicions had been leading up to this. This was turning into something bigger than a gut feeling, something far greater than doubts that tickled in the darkness.

And now he was here before the Queen after the last flickering of the candle's flame died out. He was standing as a representative of Durai's Guard that lied to their sovereign about the death of the Healer, and he was ready to take the full force of the Queen's wrath. But the Queen's wrath was not what he feared the most now; he feared most what could possibly have happened to Hemele. He wished that whatever fury she was going to rain down would hurry up and get over with so he could go and help his best friend.

When her reaction broke, it was nothing what Jian was expecting. She neither yelled in her anger at betrayal nor had underlying, subtle hostility whatsoever. Instead, she started to cry. The second the first tear started down her cheek, she brought both of her hands to cover her face and started to sob. Jian took a step back not knowing where the tears were coming from or quite what to do about them. All he could do was watch.

"She's alive? Althea…she's really alive." Mireya couldn't believe the reality of it, but in her heart, she wanted more than anything for it to be true. More than that, in her heart she knew it HAD to be true. Within a matter of a few seconds, she lived through every painful emotion she felt over the past year. The confusion at her disappearance, the sadness of clutching the hairbrush left behind, the anger at her leaving when Baldrik died, and the pieces of her that she could feel die each time the search parties for her came back with no sign. With all of that, she had never had any hope of her return. No real hope, anyway. She told herself to hold onto hope, but deep down in the deepest parts of her heart, she knew the moment she realized that her sister left behind a memento that Althea was lost to her one way or another forever.

But now…now she had hope. Real, warm, and golden hope budded and bloomed within her soul for the first time since she lost Baldrik, since her life turned completely desolate. Now there was really a chance for light to flourish within her again.

Jian looked on no longer feeling fear of the repercussions and punishment, but now he was overcome with remorseful guilt at having kept this from her. He didn't know. How could he? He wasn't a confidant; he was a soldier following orders. But somehow Hemele knew. He knew there was a wrong that needed to be set right. His Captain, his friend, he was really something special.

"My lady, I ask for forgiveness. Had I known -"

"Let's skip that for now," she said wiping her eyes and bringing herself to the present. "Your Captain writes here with some urgency, and he gave you a short time frame in which to expect him back or act immediately. Something tells me that time is of the essence."

Jian was surprised, but then again, that's why she was such a beloved ruler. She never dwelled on the negative. She always moved fast to what can be done, what should be done, and not on matters not important to the moment or self-indulgent. He respected that immensely. "I agree," he said eager to join her in action. "He didn't mention to me where he was going, but in all our talks, I have a pretty good idea."

Mireya raised her hand, "Wherever he is, I want to pay an immediate visit to the man who had you keep this news from me. I have some things to sort with Durai."

Jian squared his shoulders and stood at attention. "Your Majesty, please permit me to go with you. If Hemele was walking into danger like he thought he might, I cannot let you go alone."

She nodded at the request. She gave a thought or two for a moment as to what exactly she intended to do when she asked, "What exactly made him finally go against Durai's orders? What made him suspect something wasn't right?"

"My lady, there was a man found with Althea in the village. When our orders were given to us, his presence presented a complication. However, we couldn't just leave him or otherwise silence him; the Healer insisted he be kept safe. It was the only condition she asked for herself. We dropped him off in the secluded ward of the Hospital, the one used for madness, and he had visited this man."

This information certainly hit Mireya badly, and she was angry that one of her people had been made to suffer because of an order that should never have been given. She called over to a waiting attendant that stood at the door always at attention. "Go to the Courtside Hospital. See to it that the man brought there and placed in isolation be freed immediately and with apologies."

The attendant bowed and left immediately. The tone he heard in her voice explicitly urged haste and severity; he did not linger for further ceremony.

Jian watched the attendant leave and then looked back at Mireya, "That man may come to the palace. He might be in danger then. Is that really wise?"

She thought about those implications, but then replied, "If that is his choice, it is his choice. We have kept him from the actions of his free will long enough. Besides, we might need all the help we can get. And if Althea spoke for this man, then he has my trust."

Mireya heard her own words and realized they sounded ludicrous. However, something about it seemed like the will of fate. Something she couldn't quite explain. It didn't matter.

In haste and impulsiveness, there is a larger chance for mistakes. And in such a dangerous game, mistakes can prove the grievous if not fatal. The two figures left the throne room in such haste with no thought as to planning, no orders for additional guards, and no escape routed should things go wrong. And in these dangerous games, something always goes wrong.

They arrived breathless at the long hall running the entire way there. As they turned the corner to face the long corridor leading to Durai's room, a blinding flash of white light came from the open door. It was so bright that the two of them fell over as if struck by a physical force. They struggled for sight for long moments shaking their heads in a dazed manner. What could that light be? What the Hell was going on?

Once the flecks in front of their eyes diminished and their sight returned, they looked at each other both in disbelief of what they had just witnessed. Then at the same time, they looked towards the hallway and the open door to Durai's rooms. Jian saw the figure of a body still as death, and his heart dropped so far through the floor that it surely made contact with the center of the earth. His breath completely left him, and he choked at what he prayed he wasn't seeing.

He got up first sparing not a thought for the sovereign he left behind on the floor and ran towards the body. Each foot fall he prayed desperately that the body wasn't Hemele, each swing of his arms he bargained with the spirits of the world to be anyone but him, and each breath he took he pleaded to fate to be merciful.

He arrived at the door. He couldn't hear the battle raging on in the room. He didn't see the dancing glow of Magic. He saw nothing in all of the world except for the face of Hemele blank before him. He fell to his knees before the last sight he ever wished to see. He felt numb, simply numb. He kept thinking all through the night that Hemele would die, kept expecting the worst that couldn't possibly happen so that he could be so relieved when he would be proven wrong. But he wasn't wrong. The worst that couldn't possibly happen lay before him in a pitiful pool of his blood.

Jian didn't even notice when Mireya came up behind him. However, seeing the reaction of this guard, she knew right away that this was Hemele. She didn't have time to react to that as she was seeing all that Jian did not. She saw the fight taking place in the room before her. She couldn't believe her eyes. It was like battles you hear about in fantasy. She never thought she would see Magical clashes like she was beholding now. She couldn't even fully comprehend what she was seeing. Even the air of the room, the power radiating out from it, seemed utterly overwhelming.

But most of all, she saw her sister. She was overcome with the most devastating desire to go to her and hold her so tightly that she would never let go. More than that, she saw that the last person she truly cared about in this world was being attacked. And her attacker was someone she had trusted with everything. The sense of betrayal hit her so completely that she felt her blood heat and boil within her.

"Althea!"